ted--I made you wretched. God gave me a
chance--" she pushed him away with frenzied hands and paced wildly, up
and down the room--"a chance of salvation by happiness, and I was too
mean, too poor to take it. Geoff, do you remember that poem of
Stevenson's, `The Celestial Surgeon'? They have been rinking in my head
all night, those last lines, those dreadful lines. I _was_ `obdurate.'
All the blessings which had been showered upon me left me dead; it
needed this `darting pain' to `_stab my dead heart wide awake_!'" She
repeated the words with an emphasis, a wildness which brought an
additional furrow into Geoffrey's brow.

He sighed heavily and sank down on a corner of the sofa. All night long
body and mind had been on the rack; he was chill, faint, wearied to
death. The prospect of another hysterical scene was almost more than he
could endure, yet through all his heart yearned over his wife, for he
realised that, great as was his own sorrow, hers was still harder to
bear. He might reason with her till doomsday, he might prove over and
again that for the night's catastrophe she was as free from blame as
himself, yet Esmeralda, being Esmeralda, would turn her back on reason
and persist in turning the knife in her own wound. Speech failed him;
but the voiceless prayer of his heart found an answer, for no words that
he could have spoken could have appealed to his wife's heart as did his
silence and the helpless sorrow of his face.

She came running to him, fell at his feet, and laid her beautiful head
upon his knee.

"Geoff, it's so hard, for I _was_ trying! In my own foolish way I was
trying to please, you. I may have been hasty, I may have been rash, but
I _did_ mean to do right.--I did try! I've loved you all the time,
Geoff, but I was spoiled. You were too good to me. My nature was not
fine enough to stand it. I _presumed_ on your love. I imagined, vain
fool! that nothing could kill it, and then you opened my eyes. _You_
said yourself that I had worn you out.--It killed me, Geoff, to think
you had grown tired!"

"Joan, darling, let's forget all that. I've been at fault too; there
were faults on both sides, but we have _always_ loved each other; the
love was there just as surely as the sun is behind the clouds. And now
... we _need_ our love... I--I'm worn out, dear. I can't go through
this if you fail me. Bury the past, forget it. You are my wife, I am
your husband--we _need_ each other. Our